Now what?

  March 26th, 2010- OK, so now I'm officially The 51 Guy. The rollback pulled away, and I'm left with a really forlorn '51 Chevy. I've got some good tools, enough know-how to muck my way through most of it, plenty of ambition, and a good crew. Time to pull it back behind the house (there isn't room for ANYTHING in the garage), get some pictures, and sit in it and make "vroom-vroom" noises, while figuring out just where the hell to start.

  While we're at it, let's meet the immediate crew. Lori and Leigha, the 51 chick and the 51 kid:

  Brillo, Shop dog #1:

  Trixie, Shop dog #2

OK- the driveline is good, so let's learn from a past mistake, shall we? In 1990, Tim, my good bud since we were 5 years old was given a 1959 Chevrolet by his uncle. The car ran good, but was rusty. We instantly tore into repairing the body. A couple of years later, when we had  all the sheetmetal off of the front of the car, and the quarter panels were cut off, I looked up at him and said "You know, if we'd been smarter, we'd have drove this thing around for a few months before we started on the body. Just had some ratty old car cruising time."

  So, with my Chevy, I decided to go that route: get it roadworthy, and drive the girls around in it for a few months before tearing into the body, even though that is exactly what I want most to do. When I get hard and heavy into the bodywork, things are going to look very grim, and they're going to look that way for a while. It will be good for the girls if they have some good memories of the car during those times when it's going to look like it will never be a complete car again.

  Let's have a look at what we have to start with.

Doesn't look too bad from this side.

From this side, you can see that the fender and door aren't happy. and aren't those Autozone flames just the shit?

  First, we'll get it to "driveway driver" status- where it is relatively easy to move around the driveway. Then, we'll get it roadworthy and cruise it a bit. After that, we'll worry about getting a more suitable (yet still traditional) drveline in it, body repairs, body restyling, and interior.